Page 69 of The Maid's Secret

We gather in the living room, and as Juan serves tea, I repeat the entire alley ordeal.

Gran-dad eyes me darkly as he listens. “So she’s crawled out of the woodwork again—my daughter. Maggie.”

“She wanted to warn me,” I say.

“Warn you?” Gran-dad replies. “Do you have any idea how many times I tried to help her over the years? Her mother—your gran—tried, too. But she always fell back into her old life. And now that dreadful life is edging closer and putting you in danger.”

There’s a knock on the door.

“Now what?” I ask. “Did someone order a clown?”

“Not exactly, but I did text someone,” says Angela as she jumps up to open the door.

Detective Stark stands in the threshold. She’s wearing a baggy tracksuit, looking piqued and flushed. “I was grocery shopping, but I came running the second I got Angela’s message.”

“Clearly you weren’t the only one,” I say, as I gesture to my living room, which is now so packed with guests that Juan has to bring in a chair from the kitchen so the detective has somewhere to sit.

With everyone jammed in, I sit on the sofa between Juan and my gran-dad, recounting one more time everything that happened from the moment the black car sidled up to me to when my mother drove away. When I finish speaking, everyone is silent.

“We have to find her,” says Detective Stark. “We have to find this Maggie Gray.”

“No!” I reply vehemently. “I don’t want to find her. And I don’t want to find the egg. Since I went on that TV show, the Fabergé has brought me nothing but anguish, and calling off the search is the only way I’ll be safe. She said as much.”

“If Maggie’s telling the truth,” says my gran-dad. “But what if she’s not? What if you’re in danger regardless?”

Angela stands and starts to pace the only free spot of floor in the room. “There’s something that’s bugged me ever since the egg disappeared—that note in the vacuum canister. Why was it addressed to Molly?”

“Because whoever wrote it knows I’m the one who cleans the canister,” I reply.

“Angela’s right. It doesn’t make sense,” says Stark. “If the gang that pulled off this heist really wanted the search to stop, why not threaten the police instead of you? You’re just a maid.”

“She’s more than that to us,” says Juan. “She’s everything.”

“What I’m trying to say is that Molly might be connected to this egg in ways we don’t quite fully understand,” Stark clarifies.

“Yet,” Angela adds.

“Gran is the missing link,” I explain. “My mother all but said so. But what I can’t believe is that she would ever steal anything from anyone.”

“Agreed. I knew Flora well,” says my gran-dad, “and I can tell you, that woman was no thief.”

“Necessity can make a thief out of anyone. I’ve seen it before,” says Stark.

“Impossible,” my gran-dad replies. “Flora was different.” He stands then and walks to the door, where he left his bag. He grabs it and brings it to the living room.

“Molly, when you were onHidden Treasures,your shoebox contained many of your gran’s things, and as I mentioned before, there was one item in that box that caught my eye, and it wasn’t the Fabergé.”

“The key?” I ask.

“Yes,” he replies as he removes a book from his bag.

He hands me an old leather-bound diary with a heart-shaped lock on the front. “She gave this to me for safekeeping before she died,”says Gran-dad. “She told me to give it to you, but only when you were settled and ready to read it.”

“I’m decidedly unsettled at the moment,” I say. “And far from ready.”

“But, Molly,” Angela says, “what if she’s left you a message? What if the diary contains clues about the egg?”

“Gran never talked about her past,” I say. “She was very secretive and reluctant to reveal anything.Let sleeping dogs lie.That’s what she always said. My guess is this book contains recipes or fairy tales. She loved to make up stories—the more fanciful, the better.”